Bill McDonald grew up in Southern California. Both his parents and most of his relatives were teachers, and he was not a rebellious child.  He earned his B.A. at Colgate in philosophy and religion, then returned to Claremont for doctoral work in religion and the arts.  After a four year stint in a Midwest English department, he, Dolores and their three boys returned to California in 1969 to join the U of R’s new, innovative Johnston College.  Forty seven years later he’s now an emeritus Professor of English and of the Hunsaker Chair in Distinguished Teaching.  He’s co-authored one book on the College’s history and co-edited another, and also published books of criticism on two winners of the Nobel prize in literature: Thomas Mann and J. M. Coetzee.

Dolores and I made our first trip to Greece in 1971— camping, staying with local families, riding the ferries—and we've been back a dozen times since.  This will be the fourth time we've led an alumni tour of our favorite country, and we're very lucky once again to have Greek archeologist Maria Synodinou as our principal guide